Pecháček, 12 Ländler (1801)

František Martin Pecháček (1763-1816) was a Bohemian violinist, conductor, and composer who spent his professional career in Vienna as a conductor in the Landstraßer and Kärtnerthor theaters. He was the father of the violin virtuoso Franz Xaver Pecháček.

A prolific composer, Pecháček senior wrote in all contemporary genres, including music for social dance. His 12 Ländler, for an ensemble unusual in the repertoire of the waltz—2 clarinets, 2 horns, and bassoon—were published in 1801.

Like Beethoven's Ländler in WoO11 and WoO15, written at the same time, this set provides an excellent example of the violinistic Ländler in its traditional form—as distinct from the later keyboard Ländler of Schubert and many other composers in the 1820s, who strive to make the Ländler congenial and specific to the piano, holding to the form and characteristic figures but using less common keys often with chromatic twists and exaggerated registral play, the result being to blur the distinction between music for dance and music for recital. A characteristic Pecháček's 12 Ländler do share with later Ländler is their repetitiousness, a marker of their primary role as music for dance, not for performance.

I have reproduced the first clarinet part below, with annotations about themes in the first strains. Of the twelve pieces, the first strains of two are clearly—and two more are probably—presentation + consequent themes, the type with least variation in its units. Five are clearly periods—and two others might be. There is just sufficient difference between basic idea and contrasting idea to identify the opening phrases as antecedents. In the majority of the numbers, the theme's cadential idea is derived from the figure of bars 3-4.

What applies to the first strains also does to the second.

Published parts downloaded from IMSLP.
Wikipedia article on Pecháček: link

Menuet series 2-12 (Gottlieb Muffat)

Another close contemporary of J. S. Bach, Gottlieb Muffat—who was Georg's son—worked throughout the first half of the 18th century in the Viennese court (among his students was the future Empress Maria Theresa). The six suites in the Componimenti musicali (~1739) contain 13 menuets. Here are comments on several of them.

Suite no. 5, the trio to the second menuet, offers a simple presentation phrase, but the continuation emphasizes contrast, not development. So although I have called it a sentence, this first strain really belongs to a separate category, presentation + contrast, a design that is not only common in the menuet, along with the allied antecedent + contrast, but becomes more and more so in the second half of the 18th century, to the point that it is the preferred form for menuets by J. C. Bach and Mozart.

Suite no. 1, trio to the menuet. Similar to the preceding.

Suite no. 5, second menuet. A "classic" antecedent + continuation theme, with considerable fragmentation in bars 5-7.

Suite no. 6, trio to the menuet. The distinctiveness of the chromatic figure, the placement of the mirror at bar 5, and the extent of the mirroring all favor hearing this theme as a period.

Suite no. 2, menuet. A reasonably straightforward period; the transposition of the basic idea in the consequent is substantial but the arpeggio figure with the rhythms maintained makes the relationship clear.

Suite no. 6, menuet. The formal functions as a "galant theme" make sense. This one is interesting because of the mirroring of rhythms -- see the two (a)s and the two (b)s -- and shapes -- the two (a)s. Despite the mirroring, the continuation phrase is contrasting rather than developmental.

Suite no. 2, trio. Once again the continuation is a contrasting phrase. The presentation is extended by simply adding two bars that transpose bars 3-4 down a third.

Suite no. 6, "menuet III." The previous example hints at a figure realized in this one. I have labeled the formal functions as a sentence, but the effect overall is not 4 + 4 but rather 6 + 2: three statements of an idea followed by a formula cadence with a different melodic figure.

Much the same effect occurs in the 8-bar antecedent of the 16-bar period in J. S. Bach's French Suite in D minor, menuet II. Look especially at the alto voice (arrow).

We will see this 6 + 2 arrangement—and even its reverse, 2 + 6!—in menuets by later composers.

Menuet series 2-11 (Graupner)

Christoph Graupner, like J. S. Bach and Telemann, was a professional musician in north Germany—he spent most of his career in Darmstadt, whose Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek holds a manuscript collection of 20 dances (IMSLP link).

No. 7: A "textbook" period to begin. Note that the upper staff is written with the French violin clef.

No. 10: A fairly simple "galant theme" though the repetition of the bass figure through the first four bars undercuts contrast in bars 3-4.

No. 11: The opposite case: the bass changes direction after the scalar descent in bars 1-2, but the melody in bar 3 repeats the rhythm of bar 1. This first strain is on the fence, so to speak, between galant theme and sentence.

Bach menuet themes 2, periods

Reproduced from an earlier post, the periods among first strains of J. S. Bach's 28 named menuets:

   English Suite No. 4 in F major, II
   Partita No. 1 in Bb major, II
   Partita No. 4 in D major
   Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, II
   Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819, I
   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, I
   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, II
   Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, I
   Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, I
   Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, I

   English Suite No. 4 in F major, II. This doesn't make for a "textbook" period (for that, see the two examples from the keyboard Partitas below), in that the melodic shape of bar 2 is altered in bar 6, but the rhythms are the same (if one ignores the ornaments. . .) and the underlying bass is largely the same, as D3-E3-F3 | G3-F3 in both cases.

   Partita No. 1 in Bb major, II. Strikingly similar to those French menuets that are identical in bars 4 and 8, but that a small flourish is added in bar 4, whereas the music stops dead in bar 8.

   Partita No. 4 in D major. The PAC in bar 4 is not unknown in earlier French menuets, but it is by no means common. Where it does appear, the strategy often is as in this instance: to make a pleasing contrast with a simple I-V HC in bars 7-8.

   Brandenburg Concerto No. 1, II. A transposed consequent. Note that bar 6 would be equivalent to bar 2 if the eighth notes were removed -- then C#5 as a half note goes to the quarter note D5.

   Suite in Eb major for keyboard, BWV 819, I. A less "obvious" period than most of the preceding. The consequent is again transposed, but not exactly; still, we can easily hear the shape of bars 5-6 as that of bars 1-2. What complicates the consequent is its invention-like motivic play: in bars 5-6 we hear the basic idea against the contrasting idea simultaneously, then in bar 7 the contrasting idea's motive is used in the right hand to approach the cadence.

   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, I. From a somewhat overdone piano arrangement of the suite. I hear bar 5 as referencing bar 1 through the melody, but the bass is different, so that a reading of this theme as antecedent + continuation would perhaps be equally plausible.

   Orchestral Suite No. 1 in C major, II.  (Once again I apologize for the heterogeneous sources for the various Bach examples.) This trio is another instance of the PAC to end the antecedent, and this time I note that a PAC in bar 4 of an 8-bar theme remains highly unusual in music for social dance and more stylized music for concert alike throughout the remainder of the eighteenth century. I observe, btw, that the obvious galant solution for bar 4—a 6/4 5/3 over V—is even less likely than the PAC: in the 56 cadences (or phrase endings) of the 28 Bach menuets, first strain, only once does the HC embellished by 6/4 appear (that's in the keyboard Partita in G major).

The fragmentation in bars 5-7 beat 1 might lead to a different reading except that it is already present in the basic idea.

   Orchestral Suite No. 4 in D major, I. A simpler example than many of the recent ones above.

   Cello Suite No. 1 in G major, I. Similar to the preceding in the limited transposition to begin the consequent.

   Cello Suite No. 2 in D minor, I. Another unproblematic period form. Bach does manage to reverse the bass line while maintaining the basic idea: in the antecedent D3-C3-Bb2-A2, in the consequent D3-E3-F3 (Bb) G- A.